Madame Director General, Dear Ambassadors, My dear friend, H.E

Madame Director General,
Dear Ambassadors,
My dear friend, H.E Yossi GAL, the Israeli
Ambassador to France,
Mister Eric de Rotchild,
Excellencies, dear colleagues
Yesterday the Symphonic Orchestra of
Jerusalem, played here, on this stage, the
13th symphony of Shostakovich, entitled
Babi Yar. Babi Yar was the place where
almost
forty
thousand
Jews
were
murdered within only two days by the
Nazi troops. This was only one of many
massacres within the actions taken by the
Nazi, causing the death of six million Jews.
I wish to send my gratitude and
appreciation to those who worked hard in
organizing the thematic round table today
and to those who participated actively in
the different activities dedicated to
international Day of Commemoration in
Memory of the Holocaust Victims.
Seventy years have passed since the red
army marched in to Auschwitz-Bireknau
and the allied forces' liberated the
prisoners of the camp. Three years later
the state of Israel was established,
providing the Jewish people all over the
world a safe home, far from anti-Semitism
and persecution.
The survivors might be free but not their
souls, nor their stories and mind. It took
over 30 years for the survivors to open
their hearts and tell their stories, their
nightmares, their memories of the days
before the raise of the Nazis and the
memories after. Many of them died
without telling their story. Some told
stories that the human mind could not
comprehend.
suffering.
Stories
of
pain
and
The survivors are left only with the
memories of far, almost forgotten times.
They live with those memories between
us. It is therefore the responsibility of
each and every one of us, every person,
every human being, and every state to
safeguard those memories.
Sadly some countries, member states in
this noble Organization, deny the saddest
chapter
of
humanity.
Ignoring
the
holocaust or denying it is actually a double
crime: the first - disrespecting the victims.
The second – raising a whole generation
that might be able to repeat the same
kind of atrocities.
Teaching the holocaust and safeguarding
testimonies are the main pacific tool we
can use in order to ensure that the
darkest time in the modern era will not
have any continuation nor repetition.
2015 is a symbolic year: the Stockholm
Declaration
Holocaust
for
the
International
Remembrance
has
been
reaffirmed this year by the member states
who co-signed it 15 years ago. UNESCO is
one of the Permanent International
Partners which
also
reaffirmed this
declaration.
They live! We have the obligation to
listen, to remember and the obligation to
learn from their suffering.
Holocaust survivors live also out of Israel.
If they chose your country to live in, this
means they trust this country to never let
someone hurt them again. Not to
surrender to extremism. Not to look away
when power is abused. Not to stand by
when actions of an anti-Semite are being
carried out in our backyard.
Unfortunately, we still witness antiSemitism in many countries. Even here, in
the heart of Europe, we witnessed several
terror attacks against Jews: the kosher
super market in Paris, the Jewish museum
in Brussels last year, the shooting in the
Jewish school in Toulouse three years ago
and list goes on. If we don’t fight the antiSemitism, it will remain one of the oldest
and most dangerous diseases of Europe.
When one human chooses to hurt the
other for his color, gender, religion or
political opinions, for his or her race - for
things that one is born with – we are no
longer a free world, nor do we represent a
free humanity.
When we let people who harm, rape,
murder
to
walk
freely,
destroying
memories made in stones and bricks,
made in the city, or in the desert,
eliminating communities, villages, cities,
heritage, cultures- that is when we
become observers of the next genocide,
but nothing more.
The state of Israel is the home land of the
Jews. Some countries don't recognize its
existence and wish to abolish it. As the
Jews during the Second World War lived
under permanent threat, Israel lives under
the same permanent threat. During the
holocaust it was the Nazi regime that
asked to destroy the Jewish people and
today extremism, political and religious,
asks to do the same thing and destroy the
state of Israel.
Ladies and gentlemen, holocaust is an
important lesson to all mankind. The
second world war changed the globe and
right afterwards we witnessed the rise of
international organizations and NGOs
which were funded in order to defend the
most important values. Freedom of
expression, cultural diversity, mobilization
of
youth,
tolerance,
protection
of
heritage, the right for education and
more, all values that Israel was founded
upon and cherish.
Thank you for your attention,